View allAll Photos Tagged Midsummer
Please view on black, it is a big improvement
Getting home from the traditional midsummer celebration, the sky was so clear that the setting sun colored the opposite side of the sky and the rising full moon. And yes, it really was this bright. Further north in Sweden, the sun will only dip down, and then immediately turn into a sunrise. Would be fun to do a sunset-to-sunrise photo in one exposure. Well, maybe next time?
I wish summer was already here. In the meantime, here's a dreamy midsummer photo I took last year. Taken in Northern Finland.
The summer solstice was called Ukon juhla ("Ukko's celebration") after the Finnish god Ukko. After the celebrations were Christianized, the holiday became known as juhannus after John the Baptist (Finnish: Johannes Kastaja).Finns bathe in alcohol, many drown in our country's thousands of lakes - often with a zipper open. Since 1955, the holiday has always been on a Saturday (between June 20 and June 26). Earlier it was always on June 24. Many of the celebrations of midsummer take place on Friday, midsummer eve, when many workplaces are closed and shops may close their doors at noon.The drinking of the liquor will then begin earnestly. In the Finnish midsummer celebration, bonfires (Finnish kokko) are very common and are burned at lakesides and by the sea. Often branches from birch trees (koivu) are placed on both side of the front door to welcome visitors. Swedish-speaking Finns often celebrate by erecting a midsummer or maypole (Swedish midsommarstång, majstång). All relatives have been invited to the summer cottage to celebrate and drinking alcohol, preferably from your own bottle, because it costs a lot and can only be obtained from state-owned trade.
In folk magic, midsummer was a very potent night and the time for many small rituals, mostly for young maidens seeking suitors and fertility. Will-o'-the-wisps were believed to appear at midsummer night, particularly to finders of the mythical "fern in bloom" and possessors of the "fern seed", marking a treasure. In the old days, maidens would use special charms and bend over a well, naked, in order to see their future husband's reflection. In another tradition that continues still today, an unmarried woman collects seven different flowers and places them under her pillow to dream of her future husband.
An important feature of the midsummer in Finland is the white night and the midnight sun. Because of Finland's location around the Arctic Circle the nights near the midsummer day are short (with twilight even at midnight) or non-existent. This gives a great contrast to the darkness of the winter time. The temperature can vary between 0 °C and +30 °C, with an average of about 20 °C in the South.Often, however, the worst weather of the summer favors this moment of celebration. Finnish police like it and people drown less in the lake.
Many Finns leave the cities for Midsummer and spend time in the countryside. Nowadays many spend at least a few days there, and some Finns take their whole vacation at a summer cottage. Heavy drinking is also associated with the Finnish midsummer.Traditions sometimes include fierce fighting and the use of violence, which are discussed in the courts later. Kills sometimes occur frequently, family disputes and old resentments rise to the surface and colors are sometimes cleared up with a knife -
Midsummer is also a Finnish Flag Day: the national flag is hoisted at 6 pm on Midsummer's Eve and flown throughout the night until 9 pm the next evening. This is an exception to the normal rule of flying the flag from 8 am to sunset. Finnish Canadians in the New Finland district, Saskatchewan, Canada celebrate Juhannus.
One Of A Kind - OOAK
This gorgeous necklace was created for the July’s EtsyBeadweavers’ Midsummer Night’s Dream Challenge. I used these colours because they remind me of my teenage summer nights on holiday, where the grass looked really green and the skies were so dark they looked purple illuminated by bright lights from the stars in the sky. And because of the darkness the flowers change colour into a strange but wonderful world of greens and purples and lights.... My interpretation of an idyllic memory of how it was....
Six beautiful brick stitched flowers bead woven with freshwater pearls, purple and green fire polished Czech glass beads and Czech seed beads, and pale yellow Swarovski crystals appear to grow out from an ivory/cream brick stitched curved band and joined on the other side by 6 strands of seed beads leading to the bead woven complementary toggle and loop closure.
The largest flower measures 1 ½” (c. 4 cm) in diameter and the smallest 1” (2.54 cm). The band of flowers from the top of the first flower to the bottom of the last one measures 4 ¾” (12 cm). The neckline (inside) measures c. 19” (c. 48 cm).
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Please go and visit the EtsyBeadweavers’ blog from the 9th of July and vote from your favourite piece from a selection of incredible beadwork.
www.etsy-beadweavers.blogspot.com/
Voting only lasts 7 days, so don’t put it off! :-)
“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Model-Ella
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Raekoja plats, Tallinn old town (Estonia), at 2am one week after summer solstice. Three exposure digital blending.
I had three days off from work during the Midsummer. In Finland most of the stores are closed during the Midsummer (juhannus) and everyone enjoys the midnight sun and long days. Also Midsummer is flag day here in Finland. I spent hours outside, barbecue and company of friends. Also hubby did lots of toy dusting, and I helped him of course. These are from Marvel-shelf.
Dusting is fun, I think. When you have a large collection, you don't play with toys so often, when dusting, you can talk to toys as well. :-)
I decided to keep the water theme alive by editing another of my pano shots in three steps and three layers. That is always a serious project. I suppose that if I owned a more recent Photoshop CS, I could just stitch my three shots together and jamb hell out of saturations like the other magic artists but as ever, I am into photography and not fantasmagorical cartoons to be slapped upside the head with HDR haloes an cement skies. That just ain't me. Those are all gamut and unprintable. I presented what details I could create from Lightroom. I proceeded to produce three multi-layer shots with controlled tones and then worked to dissolve them together as one base pano and another of the shadow boost layers. I fired a few blanks as I figured out the process first before I started over. I then produced the transparency and the sky mask. I have done manual panos before and I will again. I stood next to the tripod waiting for specular rays to pop and shot several series of shots, all different. I have not looked at all of them yet, too many irons in the fire! Here is my first shot across the bow and the 4th experiments are a day away. I expect to make an early show.
This is another I decided could be special of those that I processed of the Golden Ponds sunset shots and I did decide to pull some RAW tricks after I discovered there was very little gamut on the RAW exposure in Lightroom. I held it until after I posted the rest. This is a Golden Ponds day when I expected an animated sunset when I tried to vary the elements. I even created the sky mask because this had range that could barely be contained otherwise and there was little shadow gamut and the highlights were a bit light in the exposure. I needed to hold the sky back using the mask I created.
I decided that I could hold quite some of that shadow detail with a bit of work. Lately, I have been sneaking out to Golden Ponds, the Longmont, Boulder County greenbelt and rec area waiting for the sunset shots to come around. Perfection will have to wait. I did tackle a couple of them. Today, I wanted to look for new possible locations because autumn is marching on and we may have it end in a week; we hope for Indian Summer.
I like the way the sunlight still illuminates the scene. I love shooting backlit scenes with this camera and lens. I lugged the tripod for the sunset shots because I needed to shoot the three views carefully. I suppose that I ought to include a bullet level to zero in the tripod head.
Everyone in Sweden looks forward to midsummer and this is the #payment...
Here you have my contribution to this week's theme #salary for the Swedish flickr group Photo Sunday.
what a special night, to first watch the flaming, glowing bonfires in the midsummer night. And then afterwards go hunting for a point from where to shoot the perigee moon. I decided for the view towards the powerplant across the fjord of Aabenraa
På dansk kaldes fuldmånen i juni måned også Honningmåne